Magnolia Chases 20-point Deficit To Take Game 1

The San Miguel Beermen thought that Game 1 was in the bag. They had a 20-point lead after two quarters of play. Paul Lee of Magnolia was not producing his usual offensive output. And yet, Gio Jalalon and Ian Sanggalang kept on playing. And Coach Chito Victolero brings in the game changer - Rob Herndon, who shoots a couple of long distance bombs to help the Magnolia Hotshots erase the huge lead.

Magnolia did an excellent job rotating their men. They actually have more injured key players than SMB, and yet they have been able to pull off an upset. Props to Coach Chito Victolero. He is using the 3-big men defense used by Tim Cone against Jun Mar. This win just shows that the Hotshots are probably hungrier than the Beermen.

But this is just Game 1. I remember the time that the Utah Jazz beat the Chicago Bulls in Game 1 of their best of seven finals series. The Bulls bounced back after that and eventually wins the series in their sixth match. SMB has Championship experience. And they have actually been able to come back down 0-3. That is a feat that probably won't be repeated by this team, but they can always draw inspiration from that. And they had the lead in this game. If Coach Leo Austria probably utilized the bench players more, then the core players would have had more energy in the 4th quarter, the quarter that counts.

Utilize players like Lanete, Vigil, Herjuela, De Ocampo, and Agovida. Like Herndon, Coach Austria might just get lucky and get a huge performance boost from any of them. And with Ross at less than a hundred percent, Pessumal, Espinas and Rosser have to step-up. Any help that the core players can get would be welcome.

At this point, all SMB can do is learn from this loss, and move on to the next game. It should remind them not to be over confident against this Magnolia squad. It is a good thing this was not a knock out game but a seven game series. And it looks like it will be an exciting series ahead - a good thing for all the fans.

Lest the San Miguel Beermen Forget They are Dealing with Coach Tim Cone...

I'm a proud fan of the current San Miguel Beermen core. They are the only basketball team I know of who were able to come back, down 0-3 in a seven game series, to win. And they have been in a lot of battles where they were the underdogs, but they were able to win the game. The most recent example was Game 2 of their current semi-finals series against the Ginebra Gin Kings. They were down by double digits, but they battled back to force overtime, and win in the extra period.

But they are also dealing with my favorite PBA Coach of all time, Tim Cone. And Mr. Cone has proven in the past that even when the team he was leading was down 0-2, he and his team could bounce back. And that is what they are trying to do - convincingly winning Game 3 last night against SMB. Coach Tim is amazing at turning things around for a challenged team. We see in the series that his main big man, Greg Slaughter, is out due to injury, and yet he has been able to utilize Prince Caparal - while other PBA teams have opted to pass over this stretch big man. Under Cone's tutelage, Caparal could be the next Ranidel De Ocampo.

So, as an SMB fan, I hope they don't become complacent and allow the Gin Kings to come back. They should treat Game 4 as a do-or-die game, and remember that it was the Gin Kings who helped ruin their bid for a grand slam last year. (Gin Kings and Meralco, but at the end of the day, the Beermen were also too over confident and perhaps the loss is good for the ego).

SMB also has its share of injured players, Chris Ross most recently. I guess this is a side effect of lax officiating, so that players can get into a brawl more. But the PBA should also consider the long-term health of their super stars. If play gets too rough, there might not be good players for the Gilas program in the future if most are injured or if careers are ended.

So, SMB, if you are reading this, please prepare well for the Gin Kings in Game 4. A tied 2-2 series would probably end up in a semi-finals loss for the SMB Franchise due to a shift in momentum. So you'ld want to end the series early. Players like Arwind Santos should just focus on their game instead of playing the crowd. You don't want the added heat from Ginebra fans. And even if officiating isn't going your way, (since certain people have vested interests in seeing who wins), just play on and play your best. You are currently the best team in the PBA because you play as a team. And I am blessed to have seen this type of chemistry in your past games, and hope that you can sustain it until you cement your place in history with a grand slam. 

Is Terrence Romeo Still Good for Globalport?

After seeing how Terrence Romeo got into a shouting match with Coach Pido Jarencio in Globalport's do-or-die game against the Magnolia Hotshots, it is a wonder if Terrence Romeo is still good for the Batang Pier. If we learn from Kelly Nabong's experience with Meralco, Terrence Romeo is probably on his way out since teams might value respect for coaches than any individual player. Other Globalport players might also begin to think that Romeo runs the team instead of the coaches. And we see that Terrence was actually a liability during the dying minutes of the game when he made a dribbling error on a drive to the basket that could have cut down the Hotshots lead to two points.

The Gilas fan in me is saying they should keep Romeo. Terrence was incredible during one Gilas Pilipinas game where he kept the game close for the country with successive three point shots. But Terrence is also getting old, and has yet to prove that he can give Globalport a championship ring ever since he was drafted in 2013. Five years is a long time to prove your worth, and maybe Terrence will win a championship eventually, but I don't see it with Globalport.

Globalport was actually doing pretty well during Romeo's absence. The team was gelling with Stanley Pringle, Jonathan Grey, Kelly Nabong, Gabaini, Taha, Elorde, Teng, etc. But with Romeo in the rotation, a lot of these players ended up with limited minutes. With Romeo on the floor, the offence has to run through him, and therefore becomes predictable. Disrupt Romeo's play, and chances are, he will be forced to pass to another player who isn't really ready since he was already expecting Romeo to go for the basket. With other players on the floor, play is well distributed and the team is more dangerous if scoring is balanced and the opponent does not know who to guard.

But if Romeo were to be traded, which team would want him? And who would he be traded for? Right now, the best team I can think of that would benefit from Romeo is Kia. They need a star player on that team, someone they can lean on during crunch time. But who can Kia give up for Romeo? I'd probably trade for Jackson Corpuz, Glenn Khobuntin, Rashawn McCarthy and Reden Celda. If I can get multiple players for Romeo, I would.

The next team I can think of that might go for Romeo is Phoenix. Wright for Romeo, since their both guards on Gilas. But with Louie Alas' system, I don't think Romeo would thrive since his play is usually made on the fly.

Blackwater might also want to trade for Romeo since they are lacking a star point guard. But who would the Elite give up for Romeo? Maliksi perhaps? (Since he is in a spot conflict with DiGregorio) I don't think Globalport would go for Pinto. Globalport could always ask for Eram and finally get a legitimate center, but Eram is probably the franchise player for the team, and is even in the running for Most Improved Player this season.

TNT might want to try a Jayson Castro or Roger Pogoy for Romeo. But Pogoy and Rosario are probably the team's future. And they have also recently acquired Jericho Cruz. What TNT actually needs is a post presence.

So, I don't really know if Romeo will be traded. I just hope he doesn't end up in a different league. We've seen players who thought they were too good for their team in the past end up flushing their PBA careers down the drain. A player should always stay humble because after all, they all age and get old and are usually outlasted by the team. And a single injury could end a player's career. To have a legacy, to be remembered by the fans on a good note, that should be a player's motivation in the PBA.

Transfer Multiple Photos from Alcatel U5 to Windows 8 Laptop

For some reason, Windows 8 wasn't recognizing the Alcatel U5 Smartphone when it was being connected to any USB port even after swapping USB cables.

There's also the option of transferring files from the Alcated U5 to your Laptop via Bluetooth, but I haven't been able to do this for multiple files after the devices were paired. So, I kept looking for a multiple photo transfer solution.

Device Manager was showing the Alcatel U5 under Portable Devices with a yellow question mark. This means that the device was not properly recognized.

Tried updating the drivers automatically by searching online. It found an MTP driver, but was saying something about an INF error.

Looked for an alternative solution and found a video which was recommending that the MTP USB driver be installed manually from the C:\Windows\inf folder.

Changed the browse directory option and then chose the "Let me pick a list of drivers on my computer option".

Was looking for an MTP or MTP USB device option but initially, there were none. If you see a bunch of numbers with a USB icon, try that. I guess I got lucky. The next time I tried this option, it now gave me two options, MTP and MTP USB device. Choose MTP USB device.

If all goes well, you should now see the Alcated U5 as a portable media device along with your drives on Windows explorer. Right click on it and select import pictures and videos. There are settings which you can configure to streamline this process, but basically, what happens is the PC searches all the android phone folders and directories for all photos and videos and imports these to the computer. I initially found 1000+ pictures on the phone, and this might seem inefficient. But if you are using the same directory on your PC to store all photos, you can skip copying duplicates the next time you go through the process. Yes, searching through all the photos the second time or nth time around is inefficient, but it should only import the new ones.

Personally, I still prefer the old way of going through the DCIM folder and only selecting the photos that are new based on the date they were created. But this wasn't possible in my current situation, thus the workaround above. Hope it helps you out.